Pages

Apr 10, 2013

Ladies and Gents, the silly season is upon
us. And you’re probably asking, “pray tell, what is this season’s scintillating
topic?” Well, it’s a perennial favourite. Drum roll, please…

Obsessing
over women’s dress

In Uganda there’s a bill before parliament
known as the anti-Pornography Bill. The legislation’s primary sponsor, Simon
Lokodo, Uganda's ethics and integrity minister, has said “any attire which
exposes intimate parts of the human body, especially areas that are of erotic
function, are outlawed. Anything above the knee is outlawed. If a woman wears a
miniskirt, we will arrest her.'” He further argues that this proposed law would
be for the benefit of women as a means of protecting them from exploitation and
curbing immorality.

It doesn’t end there. There is also language that would give the government of
Uganda sweeping powers to censor cultural practices, television, movies,
internet sites they deem to be inappropriate for depicting sexual parts of a
person such as breasts, thighs, buttocks and genitalia. In the minister’s words
there would be a monitoring system to detect what people are looking at and
these crimes of course come prescribed fines and prison terms for
violators.

In Zambia, a high court judge was recently
quoted in the media calling for police officers to arrest anyone found to be
indecently dressed to avoid escalating Gender Based Violence cases. Her
interpretation of the criminal code has led her to believe that there is law
that allows people to be arrested and prosecuted for indecent dress. Last I
checked this is not the case but I’m sure that won’t stop some overzealous cops
for picking up a few women dressed in miniskirts, low-rise skinny jeans or halter tops, harassing and
subjecting them to undue stress. And if all else fails, we have mob justice to
do that job.

Right on the heels of this unfortunate
statement, a young woman in the Copperbelt town of Ndola was stripped naked in
protest of what was deemed to be indecent dress. And from what has been
reported women vendors led the charge. Oh, they must be so proud. Apparently their
displeasure in another’s choice of dress gives them the right to lay their
hands on her and thus humiliate her in public. And to what end, my people?

There is also the case of the young woman
in Nyeri, Kenya who was stripped naked and groped in a market area and had to
be rescued by bystanders. During the evening’s newscast on Kenyan Television Network
two newscasters, one of whom a woman herself sporting an above the knees skirt,
were captured giggling over the woman’s predicament. Yes, it’s very funny to
see women humiliated for the same thing you could be too.

Gosh, I could keep on with the examples but
the crux of this post is the question - why? Why the constant attacks on women
and the never-ending politicisation of so-called morality? The refrain is
always that women’s dress must be regulated because it will stop the spate of sex
crimes and exploitation. This is further augmented by the claim that
western-style dress has led to the moral degradation of society and goes against
traditional norms.

I posed a question to some male colleagues
earlier, and I’ll repeat it here. When the aforementioned brigade decries women’s
dress as the cause of men falling victim to their base instincts and being
unable to control their beastly urges, is this not insulting? Why do these sweeping
and grossly inaccurate statements go unchallenged?

Here are a few facts I think bear sharing. The
latest data from Zambia shows that the most affected children by sexual abuse
are between the ages of two months to 10 years. We’ve even seen cases reported
of babies as young as 2 months old being defiled. In Lusaka alone, police
recorded 1,089 defilement cases and 75 rape cases in 2011. Can
these crimes be attributed to immoral dress or the evil temptations of female bodies that men find hard to resist even in infants? I think I hear crickets chirping.

Can we start having intelligent debates and
come up with tangible solutions on these very serious matters without peddling
worn out, and easily debunked distractive moral stances? It’s tiresome. To call
it as it is, policing women’s dress is a thinly veiled attempt to control women’s
bodies through oppression. The taunting,
attacks and public stripping must end.

5
comments:

You make some very valid points,Miss Bwalya.The conversation on policing womens' clothing in Africa needs to take on a new turn because the current one is tired,so to speak.I'm amazed at how fellow women are playing a role in the embarrassment of other women.Truly sad.Kas

MissBwalya, my humble response, if I may is this, as a Ugandan, having lived in both Kenya and Zambia where you've correctly picked some of the cases to make your case here, is that....it is the confirmation that some of us have always shouted about. That there is WAR against and over a woman's body going on. The powers that be have nothing else really to do, I think. They can't help but focus on hammering the woman's body, the immediate environment that surrounds that body.

It is control, control, control. It is wagging war. It is a major distruction of what must really be addressed. To set the masses against the destructive state agents- police, inteliggence. It is a daring provocation to society, once more, to test if anyone has the guts to rise up to challenge.

Otherwise, why would anyone living in Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, etc not use the same tough legal and political stance to arrest any leader who has stolen resources meant to save lifes of women, children, the elderly?

It is because, as someone said, may be the law is for the most powerful and wealthy?

Why would a Ugandan Minister propose to legislate backwardness that the National Resistance Movement (NRM) fought against?

The Late Idi Amin Dada, Uganda's former president is said to have forced Ugandans found to wear slippers in public, to eat them! That was law-enforcement at work!

As UGANDANS, we must haste to recover the lost moral authority that corruption has erodded to begin pretending to steer the cause for morality. I can not give what I havenot, it doesn't matter whether I legislate it or not.

By the way, rape levels are reportedly very high in India even when most women dress is long traditional attires. In most Ugandan rural communities, sexual offences are common, a factor that has been exabitaed by so many civil wars. That didn't have anything to do with the lenght of skirts or size of other women dresses, does it?

If my minister really needs to start ethical work, simply ask for release of all young Ugandan women that are incarcerated due to what I call' poverty-offenses'.

Lastly, Uganda as a state party to UN conventions that protect children, youth and women, failed in many cases to protect, fulfil and promote the rights therefrom. What is totally unethical is that then we had to spend fur more money for so many years to fight Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and other rebels, the armed Karimojong warriors as a reactionary measure. As we did that, more women kept on losing lives due to preventable causes!

If the honorable minister need war, that is the war to tackle, not to follow women bodies, women's spaces. My sisters, daughters, mothers need safe space, not virtual prisons.

It was during my research on HIV/Herpes that I stumbled upon the Hiv/Herpes information; information which is quite easy to find when doing a search for STD on google. I was into conspiracy at the time thought of HIV/Herpes Cured' being a conspiracy was something Ignorance though,I found pretty interesting about herbal medicine. I asked questions about the Herbal cure's on official HIV/Herpes websites and I was banned for doing so by moderators who told me that I was parroting Hiv/Herpes propaganda. This reinforced my belief that there is a cure for Hiv/Herpes Then i found a lady from germany name Achima Abelard Dr Itua Cure her Hiv so I send him a mail about my situation then talk more about it and send me his herbal medicine I drank for two weeks.And today I'm Cured no Hiv/Herpes in my life,I searched for Hiv/Herpes groups to attempt to make contact with people in order to learn more about Hiv/Herpes Herbal Cure's I believed at this time that you with the same disease this information is helpful to you and I wanted to do the best I could to spread this information in the hopes of helping other people.That Dr Itua cure Hiv,Herpes,Hepatitis,Diabetes,Copd,Fibroid,Als, And Cancer. He's a herbal doctor with a unique heart of God, Contact Emal..drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com Phone or whatsapp..+2348149277967.﻿

Hiv disease for the last 3 years and had pain hard to eat and cough are nightmares,especially the first year At this stage, the immune system is severely weakened, and the risk of contracting opportunistic infections is much greater. However, not everyone with HIV will go on to develop AIDS. The earlier you receive treatment, the better your outcome will be.I started taking ARV to avoid early death but I had faith in God that i would be healed someday.As a Hiv patent we are advise to be taking antiretroviral treatments to reduce our chance of transmitting the virus to others , few weeks ago i came on search on the internet if i could get any information on Hiv treatment with herbal medicine, on my search i saw a testimony of someone who has been healed from Hiv her name was Achima Abelard and other Herpes Virus patent Tasha Moore also giving testimony about this same man,Called Dr Itua Herbal Center.I was moved by the testimony and i contacted him by his Email.drituaherbalcenter@gmail.com We chatted and he send me a bottle of herbal medicine I drank it as he instructed me to.After drinking it he ask me to go for a test that how i ended my suffering life of Hiv patent,I'm cured and free of Arv Pills.I'm forever grateful to him Drituaherbalcenter.Here his contact Number +2348149277967...He assure me he can cure the following disease..Hiv,Cancer,Herpes Virus,Epilepsy, fibromyalgia ,ALS,Hepatitis,Copd,Parkinson disease.Diabetes,Fibroid...